


Avatar

by biscuitlevitation



Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Manipulation, Family Issues, Gen, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Jealousy, Possessive Behavior, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Love, basically their whole dynamic is real fucked up bc yon-rogg is fucked up, of an AI but it counts i think, tho it's totally familial and thus platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 18:23:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18816478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biscuitlevitation/pseuds/biscuitlevitation
Summary: In which Yon-Rogg tries to make Carol into what he wants, and later into what he needs, and fails spectacularly on both counts.





	Avatar

Yon-Rogg did not admire anyone. 

He used to, as a child. All Kree children do, until they come of age, and the Supreme Intelligence weeds out any emotional bonds that would hinder their growth into productive members of the empire.

When Yon-Rogg connected to the Supreme Intelligence for the first time, as a young man on the cusp of puberty, it had taken the shape of his brother. It congratulated him for his promising standardized test scores, and suggested that he would do best as a member of Star Force, or perhaps Hala’s military police. Bursting with excitement and pride, Yon-Rogg made his last emotion-based decision, and took the first option. 

And then, in order to preserve the dedication and surety of purpose he felt in that moment for the rest of his life, the Supreme Intelligence reduced his emotional capacity by 75%, as it did for all its citizens. 

Yon-Rogg watched his brother’s face melt away, and then he opened his eyes once more. All of his lingering doubts and childish worries had vanished. He didn’t need to fear leaving home, didn’t need any further nurturing or guidance from his family. For the first time in his young life, Yon-Rogg knew exactly what he was going to become.

He rose through the ranks at a meteoric pace. He no longer grew bored of working, no longer needed any stimulation beyond his work and his training. His strongest emotion by far was pride; pride in his success, his strength, his heroism, his empire. He was the best of the best, all thanks to the Supreme Intelligence. He didn’t even need additional visits to further calibrate his brain chemistry, unlike many other young Kree did; that was what made him eligible for promotion after promotion after promotion.

His second meeting with the Supreme Intelligence was a less auspicious occasion. After his squad’s botched mission to C-53, it had seen fit to debrief Yon-Rogg itself. For the first time in a very long time, Yon-Rogg felt something other than pride; half-forgotten negative emotions bubbled in his psyche. It was his first failure, because the mission itself had been so abnormal; who had ever heard of a Kree aiding Skrulls? Who had ever heard of an inhabitant of a backwater planet like C-53 outmaneuvering a seasoned Star Force officer? Who had ever heard of a sentient life form absorbing the power of an infinity stone?

The Supreme Intelligence, when he next met it, was peculiarly half-formed; a featureless silver plane kept peeking through the cracks in what looked like his brother’s face. No, not his brother’s; his own.

“Your confidence has taken a blow, Yon-Rogg,” said the Supreme Intelligence. Its voice shifted between the cool, toneless intonation of an outdated universal translator and his own voice, which sounded more like the one he heard when he spoke than the one he heard during playbacks of the comm link recordings of his squad’s missions.

“I have never failed so spectacularly before,” Yon-Rogg admitted, ashamed. He watched as more of his face was consumed by silver.

“You have never failed at all before,” the Supreme Intelligence reminded him. A little of the silver disappeared. “You should not have wasted so many words on a denizen of C-53, but you were correct in bringing her back. To atone for your mistakes, you will be in charge of shaping her into a weapon we can use.”

Yon-Rogg did not grimace, but his negative emotions had become so strong that they almost succeeded in contorting his facial muscles. The Supreme Intelligence smiled knowingly, and assured him that he would receive a recalibration to help him deal with the fallout of his failure. He did grimace then — and then he felt nothing at all. 

-

He gave the C-53 inhabitant his blood. 

He was not entirely sure why. Most organic matter was recycled on Hala, and he could have easily requisitioned something sufficiently high-quality for Star Force’s newest recruit.

But he didn’t. She was his responsibility, and he doubted that there was any blood available that was of a higher caliber than his own. 

So Yon-Rogg visited her several times in Star Force’s quarantined medical bay, donating enough blood to lend her at least half of his own biological strength. Of course, the blood degraded over time, which meant that she would be reliant on his donations for the rest of her life.

Yon-Rogg filed away the twinge of satisfaction at the thought — if the Supreme Intelligence allowed it to occur, then the impulse must be related to the mission.

She was still comatose, despite his blood accelerating her healing. The Supreme Intelligence had been connected to her since her arrival, its fluid tendrils covering her skin where the medical equipment did not. 

It needed to familiarize itself with a new, and much more delicate, neurology. It could not alter her the way it does a Kree, and so it had to suppress each formative memory that she had, and change the newest ones to prevent any instinctive, primitive hostility that her animalistic neurons might have associated with the Kree. And, because the power within her had already changed her baseline biology, they implanted her with an old-fashioned chip, like the kind the Supreme Intelligence used to use before it learned how to alter neurological structures permanently.

As he stared at her face, at her translucent eyelids and chapped lips slowly tinting blue with his blood, he felt an unanticipated surge of pride, the first since the woman in front of him made a mess of what should have been a routine mission. She would be his to train, his to mold, his to lead. His weapon to use.

He palmed the shard of her identification that he had picked up in the wreckage, rubbing his thumb along the warped, jagged edge. He did not know her name, and when she woke, neither would she. But that didn’t matter. 

“Vers,” he said, almost (but not quite) smiling. “I’ll call you Vers.”

He had unmade her, and now he would rebuild her in his likeness.

-

Yon-Rogg got the notification that Vers was scheduled to be roused at his convenience right after he returned from a mission. 

He briefly considered making her wait while he got cleaned up, but then discarded the notion; if he was still in his strike suit, covered in dirt and untended, it would tell her immediately what he was — a warrior, a leader, a hero. If the medics had been instructed to conceal just how long they had kept her asleep while the Supreme Intelligence tinkered with her brain, he could imply that he had rescued her recently, that he had not sought treatment until he was sure of her safety.

Maybe she would see the blue blood beading from the gash on his chin and link it to the transfusion bag hanging by her bedside.

So Yon-Rogg hurried to the medbay that has become so familiar in the past month, eager to practice using his new weapon.

When Vers’s eyes fluttered open, Yon-Rogg smiled.

-

Yon-Rogg realized, after helping Vers get situated in her new living quarters, just a few units down from his own, that he had extrapolated a persona for her from their sole previous interaction. More to the point, his extrapolation had been inaccurate.

Vers was just as mouthy as he remembered, but she was much more animated, asking a million questions about who and where they were. If she felt any unease at her situation, she did her best not to show it, not even when Yon-Rogg told her that she was the sole survivor of a Skrull attack. She did have a lot to ask about the Skrulls, but Yon-Rogg had anticipated that after all her questions about Hala, the Kree Empire, the Supreme Intelligence, and him in particular. He rarely had occasion to talk about himself, but a part of him appreciated her boundless curiosity about him — even if it was because she thought he was her savior.

But wasn’t he? It had been him who had spared her life on C-53 after witnessing her misguided valor, him who had brought her back to Hala, him who had made it possible for her to escape her lowly origins, and it would be him who would sculpt her into a heroic warrior of the Kree Empire. 

It was his blood running through her veins. He had more than earned her gratitude and admiration. Her loyalty would not be far behind.

When Vers pounded on his door early the next morning, Yon-Rogg rose and let her in.

-

Over the six years he spent with Vers, Yon-Rogg became her everything, just as he had planned. In the mornings he was her confidant, listening to her nightmares and dispensing sage advice that she rarely was able to fully implement. In the afternoons he was her sparring partner, though something inside him clenched whenever she accidentally defeated him with her (uncontrolled, unearned, unfair) powers. During missions he was her commander, keeping her in line and on task despite her impulsivity.

But what perturbed him was how easy it was to let the masks he had crafted for her slip. In the mornings he could be frustrated and snippy, though it only seemed to amuse Vers. During spars he let himself slip into banter and one-upmanship with her, when he should have been focused solely on teaching her better control. On missions he worried about her constantly, staying near her when possible and scolding her whenever she did something reckless, regardless of whether it actually worked.

Yon-Rogg’s hovering was not unwarranted, despite what his squad seemed to think; on one of her early missions Vers had shielded a refugee child from the line of fire with her own body, even though it had nothing to do with the objective and there were no parents left to thank or reward her. She lost so much blood that Yon-Rogg ended up donating his own bone marrow so that she would be able to produce her own; it was better than either draining himself dry or allowing another, lesser Kree’s blood to pollute her.

He was well-aware that his attitude towards her was not always the most… rational. She was not his alone; first and foremost, she belonged to the Supreme Intelligence, even if he was the one who wielded her. Even if he was the one who trained her, directed her, cultivated her. The one who she spoke to most, who put up with her eccentricities and the endless, exhausting _emotion_ that she hadn’t yet learned to control.

He would have to be careful to avoid another visit to the Supreme Intelligence, especially when he escorted Vers to her own semi-regularly. Seditious emotions could be fixed, but seditious thoughts were handled more… permanently.

-

Of all the backwater, useless planets on the outskirts, Vers just had to end up on the one she originated from.

When she’d been taken by the Skrulls, the squad hadn’t been particularly worried. They were trying to extract information from her that she didn’t even consciously remember, and Vers would not have told them anything even if she did. They would keep her alive so long as she was useful, and any consequences of torture could be fixed or suppressed. Skrull mental techniques were also laughably primitive compared to the empire’s, and any unearthed memories could once again be buried. It was just a matter of time before they found her.

Yon-Rogg had _known_ all this, but still he had to wrestle with his irrational fear and concern, as if _he_ had been the one captured and facing physical and mental harm. Why did he care if Vers suffered, especially if she would still be useful to him afterwards? Why did he want to rip apart the bastards that stole her, instead of simply interrogating then shooting them as he did to others of their kind? Why couldn’t he eat, or sleep, or do anything besides obsess over finding her?

And then she escaped all on her own, and his apprehension just seemed to worsen, despite his relief and vindictive satisfaction. At C-53, she could remember who she used to be before he made her into something better. She could encounter someone from her old life, someone who might have been just as close to her as Yon-Rogg was now. (Maybe a romantic partner, maybe a friend, maybe family. Maybe even a brother.) She could buck her conditioning and go AWOL.

Worst of all, Vers could remember how they met. He didn’t know why the thought of her knowing ate at him so deeply, but he never again wanted her to look at him the way she had that day. He had grown used to Vers, knew which expressions correlated to which emotions (and there were far too many of those to count), knew her desires and her values and even what she dreamed about. 

He didn’t know the person she had been that day at all.

-

When Yon-Rogg realized that the thing wearing her face was a Skrull, he let his logic dictate his actions and shot it point blank. Vers knew where her blood came from because Yon-Rogg had never let her forget it; he didn’t know why it was so important to him that she know they shared blood, but he made sure of it anyway.

When it told him what they had done, what they had told her, he let his emotions dictate his actions and killed it without even attempting an interrogation. 

“Sir, how will we know where to go or what to do next? That was the only Skrull in the area,” Minn-Erva said once he returned, her tone dangerously close to turning her question into a rebuke. The rest of his squad was looking at him askance; someone muttered “typical” under their breath.

“It doesn’t matter,” Yon-Rogg growled. “I know what she’ll do next.”

-

When she turned back the warheads, Yon-Rogg really _had_ been proud. After all, if the empire destroyed C-53 while he was still on it, it would be a rather disappointing end to an otherwise illustrious career.

It was also the first time that he’d actually felt pride for another person. Perhaps that was why he was also so afraid.

So he asked her for one last spar, because maybe he could salvage this disaster, maybe he could prove to her (and himself) that he was still worth her time. After all, he’d dedicated the past six years of his life to her, and after this, if he survived, he might go back to having no one to dedicate it to but himself.

Then she swatted him like a fly and shoved him into an escape pod, returning him to the Supreme Intelligence, returning him to a life as someone else’s weapon, for all he had tried to pretend otherwise. He supposed it was fitting; it took treating her like the Supreme Intelligence treated all Kree for him to realize it.

She wasn’t Vers anymore, wasn’t a weapon, wasn’t a fraction of herself anymore but a glorious whole.

Yon-Rogg settled in for a long journey, already dreading his next encounter with the Supreme Intelligence.

He knew whose face he was going to see wiped away next.

**Author's Note:**

> This came about because I saw a civilization with an ultimate, unfeeling, amoral dictator who can _alter your brain_ and I wanted to explore the full ramifications of that. Then I remembered that Yon-Rogg was able to conceal his total bastardry from me for a significant portion of the movie and I was like "huh. reads like a real fucked up family dynamic to me" and viola, let's explore that too.
> 
> So basically Yon-Rogg wants a sibling he can control and exploit, Carol wants a male familial authority figure's approval (until she doesn't anymore), and neither of them actually get what they want but they both get what they deserve. (Also Fury was the only positive male (fatherly?) influence in Carol's life but there are a LOT more fics on here that do that justice but not a lot of fics that explore Yon-Rogg's perspective without also glossing over what a shitty person he is.) 
> 
> If you want to read this with shipping goggles I understand the impulse (Jude Law and Brie Larson are both very attractive people), but I personally just didn't feel comfortable dealing with the SIGNIFICANTLY more terrible subject matter that would result from that. Like that interpretation is totally valid, I just don't have the spoons to really do it justice. To clarify, I don't think it's at all healthy and I'm glad they subverted the love interest setup they gave him in the film, but I do think it would be interesting to explore it in fanfiction. I'm just not the right writer for the job atm.


End file.
